Find out DNS Server Version With DNS Server Fingeprinting tool
Written by vaheeD on January 6, 2013
By hiding out DNS server version number you can improve server security. fpdns is a program that remotely determines DNS server versions. It does this by sending a series of borderline DNS queries which are compared against a table of responses and server versions.
A nameserver basically responds to a query. Interoperability is an obvious requirement here. The standard protocol behavior of different DNS implementations is expected to be the same.
Install fpdns
Debian / Ubuntu user, enter the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install fpdns
FreeBSD user, either use ports or binary package:
$ pkg_add -v -r fpdns
Alternatively grab source code from official web site.
Howto remotely determine DNS server version
To determine DNS server version for domain nixcraft.com, enter:
$ fpdns -D yahoo.com
Output:
fingerprint (yahoo.com, 68.142.196.63): ISC BIND 9.2.3rc1 — 9.6.1-P1
fingerprint (yahoo.com, 68.180.131.16): ISC BIND 9.2.3rc1 — 9.6.1-P1
fingerprint (yahoo.com, 202.43.223.170): ISC BIND 9.2.3rc1 — 9.6.1-P1
fingerprint (yahoo.com, 202.165.104.22): ISC BIND 9.2.3rc1 — 9.6.1-P1
fingerprint (yahoo.com, 119.160.247.124): ISC BIND 9.2.3rc1 — 9.6.1-P1
fingerprint (yahoo.com, 68.142.255.16): ISC BIND 9.2.3rc1 — 9.6.1-P1
fingerprint (yahoo.com, 121.101.152.99): ISC BIND 9.2.3rc1 — 9.6.1-P1
Further readings
=> Read fpdns man page.